Street dogs: Why India can’t — and shouldn’t — evict its canines

For more than two centuries, authorities in India have tried to remove free-ranging dogs from public life .

Yet efforts to eliminate them have repeatedly encountered not only practical difficulties, but fierce resistance.

Why have dogs proven so difficult to dislodge from India’s streets? Colonial culling drives provoked the Bombay dog riots of 1832 , prompting authorities to experiment with relocating dogs rather than simply killing them.

In 2007, a culling drive in Bangalore , launched after a child was killed by a dog pack, drew activist protests over indiscriminate killing and cruelty.

It was suspended until more shelters could be built.

More recently, in August 2025, the Indian Supreme Court’s order to remove street dogs permanently from Delhi sparked protests across India .

Within days, the court reinstated the existing policy of sterilizing, vaccinating and returning healthy dogs to their neighbourhoods.

Later rulings partially reversed that retreat, allowing dogs to be permanently removed from institutional spaces while recognizing inadequate shelter capacity.

The principle that healthy street dogs should ordinarily remain in their neighbourhoods survived — though only narrowly.

The people/dog bond To understand the street dog’s persistence and the determined defence it inspires, it’s important to recognize what removal policies repeatedly underestimate.

These dogs are deeply embedded in the places they inhabit and in the relationships of the people who live alongside them.

For some Indians, the street dog represents precisely what modern India was meant to leave behind: unruly nature intruding into organized human space.

The dogs can also be embarrassing to governments anxious about how Indian cities appear to the outside world.

Ahead of the 2023 G20 summit, for example, authorities moved to round up street dogs so Delhi would present well to visiting dignitaries.